


To Trigger the Bleeding

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: CSI: NY
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-07
Updated: 2006-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lessing's bombings had torn open wounds on Mac's heart, bringing back memories he had tried to put aside, but the physical equivalents had been left for Don Flack to handle. Now they both had demons to fight before the bleeding could stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Errors in dialogue belong to me, as lines from the episode were transcribed from memory. The same applies to Desert Storm: I am no military expert, and the details are my surmise, rather than valid points of history.
> 
> Spoilers: 2x24 ["Charge of This Post"]

“He died in my arms…” Mac Taylor turned to face his partner, more emotion in his eyes now than she’d seen in a long time… not since… since after Claire had died.

Her heart tightened for him, and Stella Bonasera found herself once again reminded of why she loved this man so much, but before she could respond, the rest of their team walked in. They traded what information they had on their colleague’s condition, and finally Stella smiled.

“There’s room for cautious optimism,” she offered, pressing her palms together.

Sheldon turned to look through the window at his friend. “Which, in my words, means miracles are a part of modern medicine.”

And with the note of the neurological evaluation, Stella blew out a breath. “You know, we don’t all have to stay here…” A ‘go-home-and-get-some-sleep-before-you-collapse’ note that was generally directed at Mac entered her voice.

With raised eyebrows, Danny shot her a look that said he was halfway to a very pointed protest, and Mac had to smile. “We don’t _have_ to…”

Nodding then, Danny turned instead to Lindsay and asked, “So, you want that ride?”

She agreed, and the two walked off after making the others promise to keep them updated on Don’s condition. Even as Stella stood, Sheldon sent them a nod of his own. “I’m going to check with his neurologist and see when his CAT scan’s scheduled for.”

Mac waved him off and Stella paused. “Black, two sugar, right?”

His lips turned up in a smile despite himself as he nodded and she slipped away. Unbidden, his conversation in the office building ran on painful replay:

 _“How did you know what to do?”_ The young man’s somewhat awed and distinctly frightened expression wouldn’t leave him.

 _“I’ve lived through this moment before.”_ His own words echoed through his head, and all he saw was Don, breathing shallowly and losing color much too quickly, flashing in and out with memories of Stan Whitney’s still features.

Then Stella was back, handing him a steaming cup of coffee as she sat back down, pulling him out of his musings.

“I’m glad you stayed,” he told her, and she smiled.

“It’s what we do… we take care of each other…” She watched him for a moment, and their eyes locked; then she put her cup down and shifted, placing her hands on his shoulders, strong fingers working through the tension. “Relax, Mac,” she ordered. “You’re wound so tight; it’s okay—it’s over; we caught him.” Hesitation, and then she said it anyway. “Don’t fight the memories… they just get worse if you do.”

Heaving a sigh, he nodded, letting his head fall forward, letting her massage the tension from his shoulders. “I was so… so afraid… that I was going to lose him, too… I couldn’t have taken it if he’d quit right there…”

“But he didn’t,” she reminded him softly. “It’s okay now, Mac; it’s over,” she repeated.

Her hands never left his shoulders, and he sighed again, then fell silent. From behind him, she let the silence fall, watching him, her mind’s eye going back to the factory. When Mac had put his gun down, her heart had nearly stopped as she wondered where on earth he had left his brain before going in. But she’d followed suit, quelling instinct without question and putting her trust in him with a fervent prayer as she realized that he was relying on Lessing’s military obsession to get them all out alive. Being a Marine, Mac was the only one who truly had Lessing’s respect, the only one who could keep him from shooting Ellen Fielding—because at such close range, it would have been nearly impossible to miss the fatal shot.

Still Mac’s stern command rang in her mind: “Secure your weapon, Marine. Your warning has been heard.” In all the years she had known him, she had never had reason to see him step back into his role as a Marine, and she could still feel her relief that he had every bit of his command with him, that it had forced Lessing to obey and relinquish his weapon.

It had worked. Bless his idiocy—and whether she meant Mac’s or Lessing’s she really had no idea anymore—but it had worked. Then Mac flinched as she hit a little too close to the dressing on his neck, and she pulled back quickly.

“Sorry…”

“ ‘S okay,” he mumbled with a shake of his head, and when he made no attempt to move, she lowered her hands gently back to his shoulders.

And slowly, after a few minutes, Mac started to relax, started to feel a little closer to normal than he had since morning; even though the memories were still plaguing him, he no longer felt that he was standing on the edge of a precipice and trying not to fall. He straightened gradually, stretching—albeit gingerly—and turned back to face Stella.

“Thank you,” he said simply, and she nodded.

“Better?”

“Yeah…”

Again, a comfortable silence fell, and the two detectives simply sat beside each other, drawing comfort from one another’s presence alone.

“You can’t get through the military without memories,” he said suddenly, startling his partner even though his voice was just barely above a whisper, and she looked over at him. “You can’t get through the military without memories,” he repeated, “and you can’t get through an attack, whether defensive or offensive, without losing people. No matter how hard a lesson it is to learn, by God, you learn it.”

By this point, Stella was all but stunned into silence—over the years, she had heard the offhand mention of involvement in a well-known assignment, seen the pictures in his office, heard the occasional, brief stories when out with him and Claire, but she had _never_ heard him speak _this_ way, so openly, so personally, of his time in the Marines. Now, truthfully, she was no longer sure if he was even talking to her, if he was even aware that she was actually there, but she just stayed where she was, letting him talk it out.

“But it never stops hurting, Stel…” All right… he knew she was there; she really _was_ speechless now. “Like I said last week when Trevor Price died, if they hit one of us, they hit us all. There’s that creed there, and it doesn’t matter if we’ve never met; we’ll still fight to the death to protect—it’s stronger even than the bond between officers on the force… I haven’t been in active duty in over eleven years, and still it hasn’t left… Which is why I said I can’t fault Lessing’s motive—when you get right down to it, that’s our duty, to protect and serve the country. His methods may have destroyed the perspective, but his point is valid, and as a Marine, I cannot fault his motive.

“And when Whitney died… I’d known Stan for a couple of years by that point—he’d come in about four years after I did, and when we got called out to Beirut, he was assigned to my command. Then the barracks were attacked… Six twenty-two in the morning, and we already had over a dozen men taken out by the opening strike; it would be two hundred fifty lost by the time it was over. Choosing, Stella… that’s the hardest part, deciding whether to help the ones who might have a chance if you do, or move to protect and keep more from falling. I tried to do both that morning… issuing commands to my men and trying to keep Whitney with me… and I couldn’t… he died in my arms,” he repeated, taking their conversation back to where it had been before the others had arrived. “I was trying to get a response… and I couldn’t save him.

“That was the same day I ended up with this burn.” He gestured at the spot below the collarbone that bore the old scar—that bore the constant reminder of the old memories. “Everyone was firing, and explosions started going off. I lost track of what was actually happening; all I could focus on was my men—where they were, what they were doing. Then I got hit… I was hit, and it hurt like hell, and the only thought that was running through my head was that I deserved it—deserved my own pain because I couldn’t stop Whitney’s.

“When I found Don today, it was like reliving hell. I’ll never stop fighting for this country, and I’ll never regret it, but if there’s one thing I don’t miss from active duty, it’s watching my men die and being helpless to stop it.” Had he looked up, he would have seen the sympathy in Stella’s eyes—sympathy mixed with pride, and she reached across and clasped his hand in hers, offering him the physical contact he couldn’t ask for, and he squeezed her hand lightly in wordless thanks.

“I hate that feeling, Stella… of not being able to do anything… of being so insignificant that nothing I do can make a difference. It’s part of why I became a CSI—that way, there was always something to work with, and even if I couldn’t prevent every death, I could prevent _some_ … I could provide some vengeance. And today… all I could think of was that I had to save him, that I couldn’t fail another of my men.”

He fell silent this time and remained that way, and she gently started rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand. “You didn’t fail Don, Mac, and you didn’t fail Whitney, either.”

His eyes rose to meet hers for the first time since he’d begun speaking. “How do you know, Stel? You weren’t even there…” There was no reproach in his words, only pain.

“I didn’t have to be. I’m here, and I know you now; I know your integrity, and I know how stubborn you are—you don’t give up until there is absolutely _nothing_ left. That’s why our lab is so successful: you. You don’t fail people by accepting reality, Mac. You fail them when you stop fighting, and you never do.”

His fingers tightened around hers almost painfully, and she gently reached around him, pulling his head down to her shoulder. “You’re the strongest person I know, Mac,” she whispered into his ear, leaning her cheek against his hair, “but no one can be invincible.”

He didn’t fight her; even if he’d wanted to, he didn’t have the energy. And he trusted her; if anyone could keep him safe, even from his own demons, it was the woman sitting next to him.

“It’s okay,” she reassured softly. “Let it go, Mac; it’s going to be okay.”

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Spoilers: 2x20 [“Run Silent, Run Deep”]; 2x21 [“All Access”]; 2x23 [“Heroes"]

Danny wove his car through the somewhat fading traffic, nearly on autopilot—at eleven-thirty at night, even New York had to sleep to some extent. Or rather, not, but at this point, it wasn’t as though it really mattered.

From the passenger’s seat, Lindsay kept shooting him worried glances; he never noticed, which worried her more, and she finally gave up on the glances entirely and broke the silence. “You going to be okay, Danny?”

“Huh?” He started, appearing to have forgotten that she was even in the car, and she repeated her question. “Oh… um…” he shrugged. “Yeah… I guess.”

“Are you really?”

He shrugged again. “Jus’ needa think on ‘t.”

“You sure? If you—“

“Look, Montana, I really _don’t_ needa be shrinked,” he answered wearily. “I’m alright; jus’ need some time.”

He shot her as much of a smile as he could muster to take away some of the sting of his words; he appreciated her concern, but he’d learned the hard way that it was right up there with impossible to keep it together when someone was overtly sympathetic, and he knew himself well enough to realize that he was a little too close to the breaking point. And if his control shattered now… that simply _wasn’t_ something he wanted to think about.

Lindsay was nodding, not offended the way he had thought she might be from being brushed off. And if she _was_ offended, she was doing a damn good job of hiding it. “Okay. I just wanted to ask.”

“I know… Thanks,” he added as he pulled up in front of her building.

“You’re welcome; thanks for the ride.” She stepped out, then hesitated, her hand resting on the open door; he turned to look at her. “If you need anything, let me know,” she said finally, and didn’t give him a chance to respond, shutting the door and stepping away with a wave behind her.

For a moment, Danny just sat there, watching the doors unseeingly, realizing he hadn’t said a word. He considered following her, then gave up and pulled back into the street, reaching his own apartment building about twenty minutes later. He killed the engine but stayed in the car, leaning his forehead against the steering wheel. Energy was now a long-forgotten concept, and hope was beginning to follow a close second.

Dragging himself out, he locked the doors and made his way through the building to the fourth floor, wondering what in hell had possessed him to climb stairs, and at the same time grateful for his body’s loud protest, giving his mind something else to focus on besides the myriad of unwanted thoughts running through his head. And he made it out of the stairwell alive, though breathing hard and silently cursing himself, vowing to never do that again despite knowing it was inevitable.

Five minutes found him standing in his kitchen, pouring whiskey into a glass. Contrary to popular belief, he did not habitually drown his emotions in alcohol, especially when he was alone, but tonight… tonight, he wanted—needed—to forget. He sank onto his couch, his body thanking him for the reprieve and his mind taking off in overdrive no matter how hard he protested or how badly the liquor burned his throat.

The past couple of weeks had been pure hell—and he’d been locked into the tenth level with no chance of escape. First to fall? Louie, the brother who had seemed immune to reconciliation… the brother who had not appeared to know the meaning of the word “penitent” after that cursed night at the stadium… the brother who had been his idol growing up… the brother who had destroyed his illusions at seventeen… the brother who had done so much to protect him… the brother who had forsaken himself to save the man he still considered to be his baby brother… the brother whom Danny had thought he’d never care to speak to again, no matter how much that notion hurt, until he’d been lying in a hospital bed, surviving solely by help of machines. And fuck, that _hurt_.

Once he’d heard that tape, once he’d known he was cleared and finally understood, he’d felt something in him die… and he didn’t think he could ever get that back. He hadn’t meant to break that night, standing outside of the hospital, and maybe he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t started talking, but he had known in his heart even then that his brother wasn’t ever going to wake up, that they had lost every chance of making up for lost time. Seeing the sympathy in Mac’s eyes had been the end of his control, and with anyone else, he would have pushed them away, but Danny remembered the Towers catastrophe as well as anyone, having started working for Mac that year, and remembered watching his mentor slowly start down the same path that his wife had been forced to follow… and if anyone knew how it felt to sit at a bedside, waiting for a response that would never come, Mac would.

He had tried taking the time off… two days, and he had found himself straddling the border of insanity. Finally, he’d given in to necessity, begged Mac to put him back on duty, and, after some hesitation, his boss had agreed.

Five days from then, hell’s second victim this time around had fallen. And of all people, it had been Stella who had fallen prey to a psychotically obsessed boyfriend. Danny had frozen when he got the phone call from Don, unwilling to believe that she could have been hurt. He hadn’t made it to the hospital before she’d been released, and in a way, he’d been strangely relieved: he’d had more than enough of hospitals. By Mac’s orders, he and Lindsay had finished up the concert case, and all that mattered now was that Stella was all right; she would bear the scars forever, but she was tough, and she would heal. When she had shown up for work less than a week later, he’d been grateful, perhaps a little worried that she was back so soon, but not terribly surprised. She had fallen back into the job seamlessly, and Danny had thanked every deity he had ever heard of that she was okay.

Then two-and-a-half weeks after Louie had been hospitalized, Danny and his parents had made the decision to pull the plug; Louie had passed on within the hour, and with him went a piece of Danny’s heart. He’d left, unable to see his mother’s tears and still not lose his handle on his emotions. But the next day had brought no reprieve, and attempting to drown himself in work was futile, for Sheldon had made his heartrending, shocking finding: Aiden Burn had been murdered.

There had gone a second piece of Danny’s heart, and he found himself thinking bitterly that he hadn’t even been allowed time to mourn one like a decent person before another one followed. When Mac had pushed him to the Marine’s case, anger had been his first reaction—he’d wanted justice for his friend, unconditionally, wanted to be the one to finally put the elusive bastard behind bars. Then grudging gratitude and the irritating concept of reason set in—he knew now that he wouldn’t have been able to work Aiden’s case objectively, and the distance of his assignment had helped him retain his hold on reality, whatever that was. But that hadn’t made the findings any easier to bear, and had Mac _not_ been physically restraining him, he knew he’d have jumped the table and quite cheerfully murdered D.J. Pratt with his bare hands. Because he hadn’t, only Pratt was in jail, rather than the both of them.

Aiden’s funeral had been the day after Louie’s, and having to speak at both had nearly been his undoing. But somehow, he’d made it through, though he’d been the last to leave both services.

They all mourned Aiden; Danny didn’t think for a second that he was the only one who had been hurt by her death. But he had been much, much closer to her than anyone else—anyone else save Don. The three of them had made up a tight-knit triangle that they’d once thought nothing could break. But when they’d said that, they’d never considered death as an option. Betrayal, loss, family, and anything else on God’s green earth, yes, but not that. Ironic, perhaps, given their then-conjoined occupations, but the fact remained that they hadn’t. He and Don had spent that night together in commemoration of her, but they’d both held out somehow, drawing on the other for strength that neither of them had in actuality, but that both believed the other held theoretically.

And just as Danny had begun to wonder if maybe his mind could have a chance to recuperate, he had come to the conclusion that the “bad luck comes in threes” adage did not apply to Danny Messer. Four and five had come in the same call, in the frantic 10-33 that had left Stella looking like she’d been punched in the gut, Danny feeling like he’d just had the plug pulled on _him_ , and the entire remainder of the team rushing to the scene.

When he and Sheldon had gone in with Search and Rescue and found both Don and Mac, Danny’s heart had stopped. At least when he’d seen Lindsay, she’d been up and moving, just worried and rather shaken, but still dispelling most of his fears for her. Neither Mac nor Don had been that accommodating—Mac’s entire right shoulder had been soaked in blood; there had been a gaping hole where Don’s stomach should have been. He’d have sworn then that his friend was dead, that they were too late, because nobody should have been able to survive a wound like that, but Mac had called out for help because of injury, not for the coroners to remove a body. State of exigency, perhaps, but not one of death.

And so he had given in when Mac and Stella had all but ordered them to go home. Don was one of his best friends, but he wouldn’t have been able to make it through another night in the hospital; he had been just too close to breaking, and he’d had to get out of there before he did.

So he’d ended up back at home, and by this point, he was standing with his now-empty glass in hand, staring at the bookshelves he hadn’t had a chance to touch in two weeks—that had to be some kind of record. Then, in the dim light, his gaze landed on a framed picture on one shelf of him, Don, and Aiden, taken by Stella about two years ago one random day when the whole team had gone to Central Park to enjoy the afternoon and have lunch; they’d found Don and essentially kidnapped him on their way out. Don was sprawled across a picnic table; Danny had been sitting on the edge, one foot propped on the bench; Aiden had put a hand on both their shoulders, looking out from between them.

And as he drank in the picture, it was the final straw in a haystack too big to begin with. A strangled scream tore from his throat unbidden, and he spun, throwing his empty glass at the wall as hard as he could, hearing it shatter the way he felt like he should be doing—should have done a long time ago. His overtaxed body gave out on him, and his legs buckled; too tired to fight, he sank to the floor, drawing his knees to his chest and giving into the flood of tears he had been holding back for weeks. It was too much, all at once, and it hurt, goddamn it, worse than anything he’d ever known.

He lost track of how long he’d been sitting there, but he remained where he was long after the tears had stopped. Normally, he’d had have gone to Aiden or Don, depending on who was closer or what kind of mood he was in—both of them knew him backwards, and vice versa, for that matter, but both of them were currently unavailable… and one of them was going to remain that way. Stella… she was with Mac, which ruled both of them out, because if Mac was going to talk to anyone, she was it. Which left Lindsay, whom Danny had grown accustomed to much faster than he’d expected. Which is why his fingers found his phone and dialed her number almost of their own accord.

“Danny; what’s going on?” she picked up. “Hear anything?”

“Not yet,” he answered hoarsely.

“Danny?” Her tone grew worried. “Danny, what’s wrong?”

“Look, Lindsay—“ She froze then; he never called her that… “—is there any chance that… could you…” He trailed off, then sighed. “Never mind; sorry if I woke you.”

“Danny, you don’t call me at one in the morning after a day like this if you haven’t heard something about Don for nothing; I may not know you that well, but I know you enough to be able to tell you that much. What’s going on?”

He didn’t say anything, and she could feel his hesitation through the silence, so she finished his original sentence for him. “Do you want me to come by?”

He nodded, slowly, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “Could you?”

There was silence over the line for a moment. Then, “Danny, open your front door.”

“What??”

“Just open your door.”

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	3. Chapter 3

The passing hours found Mac standing beside Don’s bed, watching him, reassuring himself that his friend was still breathing. He had fallen asleep sitting there with Stella, awaking only a few minutes ago to find her asleep, as well. Rather than wake her, he had pulled away silently and come in to see Don, needing to see the proof that there was yet one of his own that he had not failed.

But standing there, he felt the most oppressive sense of déja vu: he was still seeing Whitney, to an extent, but even that was less intrusive now, thanks to Stella… but the memories that haunted him now were those of the last time he had had to hold a vigil like this in the hospital… after Claire had been caught in the Towers. Same hospital… she’d been two floors up… and he’d sat by her side for over eight hours, hoping, praying that she would hold out, but all to no avail… she had died at seven o’ clock on the evening of the eleventh of September, on the evening of that fateful day that had spelled out hell for so many people.

“If you can hear me, Don, squeeze my hand,” he whispered suddenly, breaking the silence of the room with his push to know how much he had the right to hope for.

Part of him didn’t know why he was putting himself through it again, but another part of him knew he needed to; he’d never forget the feeling of Whitney’s hand slipping from his, the feeling of life draining out of one far too young to die. Nor would he ever stop remembering his wife’s devastating lack of response, and the steady flatlining of the monitors he’d heard moments later. But he had to… still he had to try, in his own masochistic manner.

“Don, squeeze my hand,” he whispered again, almost begging now, and as he waited, on the verge of giving up and accepting both his new failure and the ramifications that came with it, his friend’s fingers slowly wrapped around his.

He dipped his head, swallowing hard and biting back the tears that burned his eyes as he wrapped his free hand around their intertwined ones, offering up a silent thank you. Long minutes passed, and neither of them let go; so wound into his thoughts was he that he never heard Stella approach until she spoke.

“Mac?” She stood in the doorway, worry written across her features—seeing her partner standing there, she almost automatically assumed the worst. “Is everything okay?”

Looking up, he nodded. “He’s responding,” he told her quietly, and she entered slowly.

Her gaze swept the monitors briefly before landing on Don’s features, and a gentle smile played at the corners of her lips; she looked up, locking eyes with Mac briefly. From her place on the other side of the bed, she reached across and laid a hand against Don’s cheek.

“Hang in there, Don,” she said. “Come back to us…”

But a few moments’ silence and she turned her attention to Mac, coming around the foot of the bed to join him; at the current moment, it was the fully conscious of the two men in the room that had her more worried.

“Mac?” she asked again, laying a hand on his shoulder. She had known him long enough to be able to read him like an opened, well-loved book, and she could see now that he was struggling against something.

Almost in slow motion, he gently pulled his hand from Don’s and turned to face her. He opened his mouth to say something, then promptly closed it again, and to her surprise, his eyes filled; now she was still more worried as he closed his eyes and ducked his head, and a single tear slipped down his cheek.

As he suddenly brushed past her, nearly running into the hall, she followed, more terrified than anything else now—Mac _never_ let himself cry… or at least, not in front of other people. In the twelve years she’d known him, she’d only seen him lose it a handful of times, almost all surrounding Claire—once, two weeks after she had died and he had finally broken open and allowed himself to mourn her loss instead of fighting it. The worst after that had been the first set of anniversaries—birthdays and the like—but it took far more than the average to push him over the edge.

As she ran down the hall after him, she found herself thinking that it was a _good_ thing that there were essentially no other people on the floor at two in the morning, for if there had been, she’d have had absolutely no qualms whatsoever about plowing them over to reach him. She saw him duck into a small side corridor and promptly followed him there to find him with his arm braced against the wall and his faced pressed into his sleeve, shoulders shaking. Tears burned her own eyes—for him, though she had no idea why he was suddenly so much more upset—and she reached in front of him, placing her hands on his shoulders.

“C’mere,” she begged him softly, pulling him to her; he never resisted, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her shoulder—he desperately needed something to hold on to, something… some _one_ fully alive who wouldn’t be swept away from him. He hated himself for breaking down, but if Mac would permit _anyone_ near him, she was already there.

Her own tears were falling now, and she rested one hand at the back of his head, the other gently rubbing his back; he was actually shaking, and she was afraid that he was on the way to collapsing.

“Breathe, Mac,” she whispered. “Take a deep breath; it’s okay. It’s going to be okay… I promise.”

By this point, she had switched over to Greek, not even consciously aware of the change, and she continued to speak, no longer even caring or realizing _what_ she was saying, only that she was trying to get him to calm down. Finally, his breathing evened out and she stopped feeling as though he would take them both down, but his hold on her never lessened, and when he began to speak, his voice was hoarse, muffled against her shoulder.

“Claire… I keep seeing her in here… keep hearing that damn monitor going off… I keep remembering losing her here… I keep remembering _her_ , and damn it, Stel, it hurts… I haven’t seen these memories in months…”

“Oh, Mac,” she whispered, closing her eyes against the renewed onslaught of tears; she knew what that had been like for him.

No matter how hard she tried, she had no words of comfort to offer… what could she possibly say in response that would be of _any_ merit? So instead she said nothing, continuing to just hold him, until he pulled back of his own accord, drawing a hand across his bloodshot eyes.

“Sorry—in… in case… I know Don can hear us… I didn’t want him to…”

“It’s okay; don’t worry about it,” she reassured him.

He looked at her then, bringing a hand to her cheek. “I’m sorry, Stel… I didn’t mean to make you cry…”

She just shook her head. “Shut up.”

A half-smile finally played at his lips, but before he could say anything in response, the alarms went off and the intercom clicked on.

“Code Blue! All personnel to recovery, 508! Repeat, Code Blue! All staff report to R508!!”

Mac and Stella turned horrified looks upon one another for just an instant before bolting back down the hall, now both praying for all they were worth. That was Don’s room.

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	4. Chapter 4

The echoes from the PA ricocheted through the halls, clanging discordantly with the frantic mental turnabouts that both Stella and Mac found themselves performing. As they flew back down the hall, it seemed suddenly an impossible mile, not the few hundred feet they’d both run not twenty minutes ago.

By the time they reached the door to Don’s room, neither dared enter for fear of interrupting the violent cavalcade of doctors and nurses already on call. They stopped outside, forcing themselves to settle for the view through the window. Mac gripped the frame so hard that his knuckles turned white and the metal bit deep into his palms; he never noticed. His partner bore an equal grip on his shoulders, though whether to keep him from breaking straight through the glass or to keep herself from doing the same she would never know.

“I can’t find a blood pressure!” someone yelled as the covers hit the floor unnoticed.

 _No_ , Mac thought desperately, fighting against the bitter taste of fear. _Not now; God, please don’t take him… He’s too young… He doesn’t deserve this…_

“No pulse!” another voice shouted; then, “The cart!”

The cart that had stood in the room’s far corner was yanked next to the bed; electrodes were attached to bare skin; a shout of “Clear!” seemed to echo through the room; every technician in the room stepped away from the bed as a bolt of electricity was shot through the unresponsive body; still the noise refused to subside.

Though neither were frequent church-goers any longer, they both gave into desperate prayer, each subconsciously moving in tandem with the other as the scene in the room played out like a sadistically personal medical horror film. The persistent, piercing whine of the heart monitor overrode the protests from the bevy of machinery in the room and made it a physical impossibility to do aught but stand like a toy that had been wound up too tightly to move.

 _Damn_ , Stella thought, the weave of Mac’s suit jacket suddenly painfully tangible under her fingertips. _Come on, Don… You can’t leave… Don’t you dare let him quit… God, don’t make him relive Claire again…_

“No response! One more!” a doctor ordered over the mechanical screech in the room, and the machine zapped the detective once more; the monitor offered up a weak blip in protest and both Mac and Stella held their breaths.

“Don!” a nurse shouted in his ear. “Don! Can you hear me??” No response. She turned then to the two waiting detectives, gesturing them in. “Call him; keep calling him.”

“Don!” Both his colleagues repeated his name in his ear. “Don’t you dare quit on us, Don!! You are not allowed to leave! You hear me? You are _not_ going to leave!”

Finally a doctor shouted, “Got a heartbeat!” The monitor rolled out a staggering green line—far from perfect, but far _more_ comforting than the flatline that it had arrogated.

“Pulse and blood pressure,” someone else confirmed, and the room at large seemed to heave a sigh.

“He got lucky,” a male voice said, stating the painfully obvious truth, for Don Flack had been unerringly lucky as of late—since before the explosion itself. The worst fear was that the luck would run out right when they needed it most.

Mac and Stella locked eyes over Don’s bed, and slowly, both released their stranglehold on the rails, letting the blood back into their hands as they fought the threatening tears.

“We got him back,” he said softly, as much for his benefit as hers.

Her nod was slow in coming, but it was there. “From death.”

And finally, the noise around them seemed to settle.

( _To Trigger the Bleeding_ )

Confused by his coworker’s cryptic answer, Danny did as told, pulling open his front door to find Lindsay standing there, hanging up her cell phone.

“What… what are you doin’ here?” Whether from the alcohol or exhaustion, his mind was a little slow on the uptake.

She shifted an eyebrow at him. “I couldn’t sleep,” she deadpanned. “Are you going to make us both stand here all night?”

“Uh, right; sorry,” he mumbled, stepping back and shutting the door behind her.

Stopping in front of the couch, she turned to face him, noting the shattered glass against the wall but tactfully refraining from comment. “Are you okay?”

Danny just shrugged, dropping back onto the couch and gesturing vaguely at the space next to him in an indication that she could join him; she did, reaching out hesitantly to touch his shoulder.

“Danny?”

“God, Montana, I jus’… I dunno… Nothin’ makes sense, ya know? Everythin’ happenin’ so fast… Never gedda chance to think an’ then somethin’ else falls on ya.”

“It’s not fair, is it?”

“If it is, someone’s got a warped idea o’ fair, and it sure as hell ain’t me.”

“I know… I know… Sometimes I don’t think we’re supposed to understand what happens. Sometimes I don’t know if we want to. But then we have to keep wondering if.”

“If…?”

“If anything could have changed it.” She just looked at him then, saying nothing, and silence fell as they locked eyes for long minutes.

“Can I get you a drink or somethin’?” he asked her suddenly, and she gave herself a mental shake at the change of subject.

“I’m all right, Danny.”

He didn’t have to say anything; she realized that the last thing he wanted to _talk_ about was the past couple of weeks. Sinking deeper into the couch, she waited for him to do the talking, letting her thoughts drift as she watched him.

“What’re ya thinkin’ ‘bout?” he asked a few minutes later, wanting to change the subject to something hopefully less headache-inducing.

A slight smile played at her lips. “Something Sid said a couple weeks ago.”

“Sid…?”

“Hammerback.”

Danny just shot her a ‘do-you-think-I’m-stupid?’ look. “I’m pretty sure I know who Sid is, Montana; we all work in the same place. What’d he say?”

“Montana.”

“Huh??” Once again, Danny was left confused.

“Why do you call me that?” Why she was actually taking the conversation in that direction was utterly beyond her.

“ ‘Cause somehow Kentucky seemed like the wrong state,” he informed her. “What’re you gettin’ at?”

“He said…” Now she hesitated, wondering if it would be smarter to just give up; a look at his face told her no. “He said you call me that because you have a crush on me…”

“Whoa, whoa, Montana,” he protested, holding up his hands as the words shocked him right out of his muddled mindset. “Hold on a sec… Don’ get me wrong—I like you, sure, as a friend, as a coworker, as… as a person, or however it is people explain that these days, but… but not like _that_ … I—“

He cut himself off, realizing that the woman sitting across from him was trying her hardest to stop from laughing—and rather unsuccessfully, at that.

“Oh, I wish I had a camera,” she snickered.

“You… you’re not… offended? Somethin’?”

She shook her head, still laughing. “I think I should be, but no… Given that I’m currently taken, no…”

A genuine smile made its way across Danny’s lips for the first time in months. “You an’ Aiden,” he told her, and this time, saying her name didn’t make him want to kill the next thing in sight. “ ‘I’m way outta your league,’ ” he mimicked.

“I didn’t say that!” she protested.

“Didn’ have to,” he grinned.

As if on cue, they both yawned, and Danny pushed himself slowly off the couch. “C’mon,” he told her, offering her a hand.

She followed willingly, but when she saw he was heading toward the bedroom, she stopped short. “I… That’s not me, Danny,” she told him when he looked back at her, and he just shook his head.

“I’m not sayin’ you are,” he pointed out. “We’re adults; I’m pretty sure we can sleep in the same bed without bein’ accused of molestin’ each other or somethin’.”

“You’ve got a couch…”

“No offense, Montana, but I sure as hell ain’t sleepin’ on that thing tonight, and if you do, I’m never gonna hear the end of it. I’ve slept there before, and you’re gonna wake up thinkin’ a truck hit ya; when you complain about back problems for the next week, it’s gonna be my fault. Your only other option's the floor, and thas not much better, so no. I’m not gonna let you go back t’your apartment alone, and goin’ with ya would require me thinkin’ and wakin’ up enough to not get myself arrested. So you’re stayin’ here.”

With a sigh, she held up her hands in surrender. “Okay… Okay…”

But he had no sooner pointed her at the bathroom than his cell phone rang. Groaning, he grabbed the offending object from his pocket, but he froze when he saw Stella on the ID.

“Messer.” He hit the speakerphone.

“Danny… I…”

“Stella? Whas’ wrong?”

“Don… he… he’s fine right now, they think,” she reassured him shakily, “but… he coded out earlier tonight…”

“What??”

“They think he’s going to be okay,” she repeated.

“Do you… Should we come down?”

“I think you’d be better off sleeping,” she answered, “but you said you wanted to know if anything changed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Danny… It’s okay… Get some sleep and come down in the morning; someone should be awake…”

Still he hesitated, locking eyes with Lindsay. “You sure he’s okay?”

“As good as we’ll know tonight; I promise…”

“You an’ Mac doin’ okay?”

“I’m sure we’ve been better, but we’ve been a hell of a lot worse, too, so…”

“Okay then… Call if ya need anythin’…”

“I will, Danny. Thank you.”

Slowly, he hung up the phone. “Whaddaya think?”

“About?”

“Should we go or not?”

“She said he was okay… Stella wouldn’t say it if he wasn’t…” Lindsay drew in a deep breath. “I say we take her advice, get some sleep, and get there in the morning.”

“Okay,” he agreed, after a moment, and within ten minutes, they were both lying next to each other, drawing strength simply from the other’s presence; it was all they had to go on now.

( _To Trigger the Bleeding_ )

“You okay?” Stella asked softly, touching Mac’s shoulder.

They’d long since given up on the hallway and were now seated off to the side in Don’s room on the couch that had rather magically appeared. Not that being in there really made things any easier when one got right down to it, but psychologically, at least, it made more sense…

Slowly, Mac looked over at her and nodded. “I will be. You?”

“I have no idea,” she answered honestly, shrugging and tipping her head back for a moment.

“I know what you mean,” he muttered, his gaze going back to the monitors, as though seeing the moving lines gave him comfort, gave him proof that his friend was indeed still alive.

But when he got no response from her, he turned back; her own gaze was trained on Don, and from where he sat, he could see the tears welling up in her eyes.

“Come here,” he told her quietly, reaching out and wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he noted subconsciously that their positions from earlier that evening had been completely reversed.

She obliged, leaning her head against his shoulder as she wrapped a hand around his; he squeezed her fingers gently and rested his cheek against her hair. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, and this time, it was she who broke the silence.

“They say they teach you everything you need to know… What they can never prepare you for—what they never _try_ to prepare you for—is when you have to fight for one of your own. They never warn you how much it hurts… Never mention what that knife twisting in your heart feels like…”

“I know… All the training in the world doesn’t account for the heart… When it starts to hit too close to home, you’re on your own; there’s no rulebook, no guidelines for it. You just take what you’ve got and keep going.”

“Ever make you wonder why?”

“Always,” he answered immediately. “But I always come back to the same answer: because it’s worth it.”

“Do you ever think the other way?”

“Sometimes, but only once for any longer period of time… and even that didn’t last.” Here he hesitated, then sighed. “When… when Claire was here… after the Towers fell… I remember sitting by her bed, wondering why, over and over. All I could think of was that no matter how much we did at our level, there was always going to be something like that… something so catastrophic, so powerful, that it could rip away everything we knew and make it history.

“I almost gave up that night… Almost went with her… And then you came in… And somehow, I didn’t want to go anymore. It took weeks; that was the longest I’d ever spent questioning my work, my purpose. And finally… finally I pulled out of it. I remembered something my first commanding officer told me, a few months after I’d first enlisted… He said that no matter the scale of the enemy, a weak base is a setup for failure. If you target the base, if you hurt the support system, nothing can stay standing forever.”

He felt rather than heard her sigh, and her fingers tightened around his. “Is that where you got that quote on your wall from? The one in your office?”

Nodding, he drew her in closer to his side. “It’s a good reminder… I haven’t questioned this job since then.”

Again, silence fell, and then her mind went back to what he’d just said. “Mac.”

“Hmm?”

“You said something about when I came in… When was that?”

“That night… When you came by my house… I…” Again, he hesitated; even Stella wasn’t fully aware of what had gone on that night—no one was. Pulling up his courage, he made himself continue. He was in too deep now anyway. “I had just released the safety on my gun… And then the doorbell rang. And I couldn’t, for the life of me, pull the trigger knowing that someone was going to hear it and walk in to find my body. I just couldn’t. So I shoved the damn thing in a drawer and answered the door. And I am so grateful I did… because if… if you hadn’t shown up then… I really don’t think I’d be here tonight telling you this…”

She pulled away from him so fast that he thought for a moment she was going to throw herself right off of the sofa.

“Mac…”

She breathed his name out in one horrified breath, and then did the only logical thing she could think of: she threw herself at him, pulling him into her arms and hugging him so tightly he was almost having trouble breathing.

“Easy, Stel,” he soothed, returning the embrace. “It’s okay; I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered.

“I’m not planning to,” he said softly. “If nothing else, I’ve found that no matter what triggers the bleeding, there’s always something that can stop it.”

A moment of silence, and then she smiled slightly. “ _That’s_ going on my wall,” she informed him, her voice decidedly stronger than it had been.

He smiled in response, leaning his head on her shoulder, since she didn’t seem particularly inclined to let go anytime in the vicinity of the near future. “There’s always something that can stop the bleeding,” he repeated, and his next words were even quieter, meant only for her. “And you stopped mine.”

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	5. Chapter 5

“Stella!” Danny and Lindsay walked into the Recovery floor waiting room in time to see Stella making her way through. She turned and sent them both a nod, stopping until they caught up with her.

“Hey,” she offered.

“Hey yourself,” Lindsay answered. “How’s he doing?”

“No change yet,” came the response, and Stella gestured for them to follow her. “Like we said yesterday, they’re running the eval this afternoon, and I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“You get any sleep?”

“Some; as much as you can get sitting in a hospital room,” Stella admitted wryly.

They walked in, and both Danny and Lindsay approached their friend’s bed, just watching him for a moment, and Stella stepped quietly to the side. Aside from the stitches, Don appeared to be sleeping peacefully—if you could ignore the myriad of tubes and monitors everywhere.

“Hang in there, Don,” Lindsay said softly, lingering just a moment before stepping aside to join Stella, leaving Danny a moment.

The young detective said nothing for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was low, his words meant only for his friend. “C’mon, Don; come back. I’m not gonna let you stay here, and I sure as hell ain’t buryin’ another friend. Y’aren’t allowed to go, ya hear? You’re comin’ back.” He stood there for a few moments, pulling himself back together, and then turned to Stella.

“Aright; ‘s your turn to go home,” he informed her. “You an’ Mac.”

“What about me?” Mac reentered the room in time to hear his name, taking the coffee from Stella with a nod of thanks.

“I said you an’ Stel should go home; Montana an’ I’ll take a shift. He’s on twenty-four-hour surveillance at this place; you two droppin’ dead isn’t gonna help.”

Raising a brow in surprise, Mac opened his mouth to comment, but his partner beat him to it. “They’re right, Mac; we’re no good to anyone dead on our feet, and we’ve both been up since night shift two days ago.” Piercing green eyes bore down into wavering blue. _It’s okay_ , she told him silently, for the umpteenth time since the whole mess had started. _It’s not betraying him to leave for a little bit_.

“All right,” he gave in. “I’ll go into headquarters for now and let you two take tonight.”

“Here,” Danny shook his head, handing his boss a fax. “Receptionist gave it t’me on th’ way in. Said it’s from th’ department.”

Shrugging, Mac glanced down at the paper, then rolled his eyes. “Hillbourne’s called night shift on for the next two days. Almost our whole team’s on relief duty.”

Stella’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. “Hillbourne,” she repeated in disbelief.

“Hillbourne,” her partner clarified, and she just shook her head.

“Probably the most touching thing the man’s done since… I don’t even know when.”

“No kiddin’,” Danny mumbled, and his boss shot him a funny look.

“You mean to tell me you actually didn’t read this on the way up?”

“C’mon, boss,” he protested. “Gimme some credit!” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “ ‘Sides—Montana here wouldn’t let me.” As Lindsay elbowed him in the ribs, he ducked away, then frowned, looking back at the fax. “Wait—why’s the chief givin’ us relief duty? ‘S far’s he’s concerned, Flack’s not even on our team.”

With a nod, Mac folded the paper and pocketed it. “Given yesterday’s case, I think this might be his way of saying a sort of thank you—it coincides with Don’s injuries, but he knows New York could have relived the Towers if Lessing had really gotten out of hand.”

With a sigh, Lindsay nodded. “Makes sense, I guess… Glory be, or something along those lines.” Her words drew a weary chuckle from Stella. “Anyway, you two, out of here. Danny and I’ll be here if anything changes.”

“Watch who you’re giving the orders to, detective,” Mac teased her tiredly, too drained to really protest, and he got a smile out of his CSI. “Call us, any reason,” he added. “Don’t you dare—“

“We got it, boss,” his young protégé insisted, giving him a gentle push outside the room. “Trust us. And Stel?” She turned back to Danny, a brow raised in question. “Don’t let ‘im go back to headquarters?”

“Never,” she smiled. “We’ll be back later,” she added, and with one last glance at the monitors, she and Mac slowly made their way down to the elevator.

“I get any say in this?” he asked dryly as they rode down.

“Nope,” came her prompt answer. In truth, part of her was worried for him—he was entirely too cooperative about the whole situation, which told her more than anything how much of a toll, both emotional and physical, this was taking on him. “And I’m driving.”

“It’s still early, Stella… I should go back to the lab and check on things…”

“Which is why I’m driving,” she pointed out, verily shoving him right into the passenger seat of her car. “If you drive yourself home, you’re going to end up at the lab all day and drop dead from exhaustion. Hillbourne’s pretty much handing us two days on a silver platter; take advantage of it.”

Heaving a sigh, he let her, not having the energy left to argue. A few minutes passed in silence as Stella maneuvered her way onto the road.

“You okay?” she asked after a bit, glancing over at him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d asked him that question so many times in so short a period and actually gotten as many substantial answers.

“Yeah…”

He was closing off suddenly, and she frowned, willing the traffic to move faster so she could get him home; her gaze turned to the road again, and the irony of the overcast skies did not escape her. The rest of the drive passed in a comfortable silence, but at the same time, the twenty minutes felt like twenty years, and when she finally pulled into Mac’s lot, she was even more worried.

Stepping out, he made to shut the door, but her voice stopped him. “Mac.”

“Yeah?”

“You… do you… you need me?”

Hesitation, and the seconds passed like hours; then a “You mind?” so quietly that she almost didn’t hear him.

Immediately, she killed the engine, grabbed her purse, and stepped out. “Nope.”

The two of them walked into the building and up to his floor in silence, and he pulled his key out and pushed open the door. She’d only been to his apartment a handful of times, but each visit was a sharp reminder of the man he was—thick rugs covered parts of the smooth hardwood floor; a mixture of dark and light woods contrasted the angles made by the slope of the roof, playing on aesthetic pleasure in line and setup. There was a clear order—a reflection of the Marine in him—with things in their places, almost perfectly symmetrical in a sense, offering a feeling of comfort. Now she slipped off her shoes and turned her attention to the man that the rooms represented; she was surprised to see him just standing there, staring at the room without really seeing it, and she reached out a hesitant hand.

“What’s the matter?” she asked softly.

“Can’t stop thinking,” he responded after a moment, and she sighed, taking his hand and leading him over to his couch.

Wordlessly, he sat down, and she beside him, leaning against his shoulder the way they’d been all night. Slipping an arm around to his other side, she caught his hand in hers, and waited for him.

“Too much going through my head,” came the quiet admission. “I’m still seeing flashes…”

His arm came around her shoulders, holding her to him, and she sighed. “You’re not abandoning him, Mac—you know that, don’t you?”

The answer came slowly, hesitantly. “Yeah… Yeah, I do, but believing it’s another matter. Part of me’s still waiting to find out that I couldn’t do it… that all this is a dream and that I’m really dead… that I couldn’t save him.”

“It’s not,” she informed him, tightening the arm around him. “Or else you and I are living the exact same dream, which is creepy enough as it is.”

A laugh escaped him in an exhaled breath, and she couldn’t help but think, _And if you were dead, it wouldn’t be me sitting here_.

“I know…” he said suddenly, reading her thoughts. “If I were dreaming, I’d wake up to find Claire… Now I don’t know if I could stand losing you on top of everything.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Mac,” she reminded him, hiding her surprise.

They sat like that for over an hour, silent, just holding one another as had become their norm in the past twenty-four hours, until finally Mac stirred. “C’mon, Stel; we both need to sleep if we’re going to get back in time for his eval. You can take my bed; I’ll take the couch.”

He pointed her at the bathroom, and she came out a couple minutes later wearing one of his shirts and a pair of track pants, slipping under the covers on the left as he went in. The shades were still drawn on the room, given that the last time he’d been in it had been somewhere around eight two nights ago, so the room was cast in a low light—the cloudy skies were an advantage this time.

The bathroom door opened, startling her, but she stopped his retreating figure at the door. “Mac?”

He turned, slowly making his way back to her. “Yeah, Stel?”

“Stay with me,” she asked quietly, though unsure of whether for his sake or hers.

Here he hesitated, for both of them—he hadn’t had another woman in his bed since Claire, and no matter how platonic, his mind warned him for her sake; she’d just been stabbed in the back by a man she’d loved and trusted, and he wasn’t sure where he fit in there. “I shouldn’t…”

“I’m already stealing your bed; there’s no way I’m making you sleep on the couch. You need a decent bed as much as I do.”

“For you?” The question came out far more strangely than he’d intended, but she somehow understood the point he’d been trying to make in that odd statement, even if he himself did not.

“I’ll be fine—I _trust_ you, Mac.”

His nod was slow in coming, but when he finally pulled back the covers and slid in, not even he could hide the relief in his eyes—neither of them wanted to be alone.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I promise, Mac—I’m fine.” She shifted, her back resting against his chest, and he slowly wrapped his arms around her, drawing from her warmth. “Breathe, would you? You’re so tense again.”

Inwardly, he flinched, and did his best to force himself to relax. “Sorry…”

A pause, and then she slipped her hand around his. “Talk it out,” she offered softly.

Now he sighed, and shook his head slightly. “My head’s just not listening to me; selfish as it is, I… I just need him to wake up…”

It was her turn to sigh, and she twisted slightly until she could see him. “Mac?”

“Mmm?”

“If you ever call yourself selfish again, I swear I’ll beat you over the head with my gun.”

Her words were rewarded with a low laugh. “Thanks, Stel… You would, too…”

“Exactly. Now stop thinking; your brain needs sleep more than it needs exercise—God knows you give it enough of that on a regular basis.”

( _To Trigger the Bleeding_ )

“How’s he doing?”

Sheldon walked into Don’s room, his practiced eye automatically giving his friend a quick once-over, checking for anything out of the ordinary. Danny and Lindsay sat on either side of the bed, Danny looking strained and his coworker thumbing through a book, though there was no way she was reading it—unless she could actually skim two pages in as many seconds.

“Hey, Doc,” Danny greeted him softly. “No obvious change yet; they call you last night?”

“Yeah; told me there was nothing I could do, and I got kicked out of the lab this morning and told not to come in unless called, so I came here.”

“Who’s left?” Lindsay asked.

“Sid. He’s got no choice. Makes me kind of glad I’m not working as ME anymore,” he added with a half smile.

“Poor Sid,” she chuckled. “Bet he’s thrilled.”

“Yep. So’s night shift, but the Chief just sort of glared and everyone shut up.”

Danny looked up in surprise. “He’s down there?”

“Was this morning. Guess he was waiting for us to show up so he could kick us back out again.”

“Go figure,” he snorted.

“Where’d Mac and Stella disappear to?” the former ME asked, dropping into a chair.

“We kicked them out this morning,” Lindsay admitted, giving up on her book and dropping it beneath her chair. “They both looked beat, but I think they’re coming back for Don’s eval.”

“Good for you; I’m surprised you got them out of here at all.”

That drew a frown from Danny, and he glanced up at Lindsay before his gaze came back to Sheldon. “Ya know, you’re right; they barely protested—just kinda left.”

Lindsay shrugged. “Everyone knows their limit—maybe they just figured they’d get out of here for a bit.”

At that, Danny shook his head vehemently. “Not those two. Not in this kinda situation.”

He and Sheldon locked eyes for a moment, and the other man gave the slightest shake of his head. Neither of them were sure if she knew about Claire, but they were both of a mind that she didn’t, and it wasn’t their place to explain. She knew Mac, yes, but for under a year, and with a man like him, that length of time offered less information than a five-minute conversation with any other person.

“Then again, it could happen,” he amended, and Lindsay didn’t appear to have caught their subtle exchange—and if she had, she hid it well.

With a sigh, Sheldon leaned back and glanced at his coworkers. “If you two want to step out, grab something to eat or something, I’ll stick around here for a bit.”

The other two glanced at each other, and Lindsay offered a small shrug, Danny a nod. “All right. We’ll be back in no more than an hour. Thanks,” she told him, and he waved them off.

Once they left, the doctor turned his attention to the man in the bed, sighing. “You know, Don, I _really_ hope you know you aren’t allowed to ditch us… Team seems like it’s falling apart lately,” he admitted, covering Don’s hand with his own. “You know that as well as I do; you have to get through this and help bring us back together.” A wry chuckle escaped him. “Sometimes I swear you should transfer teams—you’re already part of Mac’s as far as the rest of us are concerned.

“And you _know_ I’m not letting you out of that plan of ours, right? If you make me carry this one out alone… oh, I’m going to have to make you pay…”

Then a nurse entered, startling him out of his one-sided conversation. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to step out—I need to change his dressings.”

With a nod, Sheldon stepped out into the hall, dropping wearily into one of the chairs outside, where they’d been sitting last night. He may not have been at the hospital all night, but it wasn’t like he’d been able to sleep or anything… he’d given up around three in the morning and started reading one of his anatomy references—the most disinteresting one he had, hoping he could bore himself to sleep. No luck.

So he’d gone into the lab. No luck there, either. And he’d ended up _back_ at the hospital. As far as he was concerned, this team had been spending _way_ over the required time there, given their luck as of late.

He sighed again, and his thoughts ran back to his and Danny’s exchange about Mac. Personally, he was glad that Stella had left with him—she seemed to be the only one Mac would really let close to him, even remotely. He knew that the explosion and the subsequent consequences had drawn up some bad memories and reopened some scars his boss would have rather left forgotten, and all he could hope for was that if something good came out of these disastrous past few months, Mac and Stella would finally realize what almost everyone else believed: they were as close to a match made in heaven as anyone could find on this earth.

Granted, that was a lot to hope for, and he knew that as well as the next person. He’d seen them both after 9/11, and he knew that opening his heart was like pulling teeth without Novocain for Mac, but at this point, hope was a good thing—it was about the only thing any of them had left at the moment. It was funny—those two had to be some of the best detectives New York had available, and yet, while they could pinpoint the location of some obscure chemical in a crime scene just by hearing its name, they couldn’t see what was right in front of them. He himself hadn’t joined field until this year, and _he_ could see that.

But, aside from his random musings that, in his mind, now had no substantial basing, he stood. This whole lack of sleep thing was catching up to him, and no matter how bad the coffee was in this place, caffeine was caffeine. Theoretically, at least.

(To Trigger the Bleeding)

That evening, the team joined up on Recovery again, this time just outside Don’s room for sake of air. They were waiting for the doctors to come back with a result, and the minutes may as well have been miniature eternities.

“Anyone call his father?” Sheldon finally asked, and Mac nodded slowly.

“I did… I didn’t get an answer.” His tone left the matter closed; no one pushed it.

“So what’s your eval for him, Doc?” Danny asked instead.

“From what I can tell, I’m hoping,” came the answer. “He doesn’t seem to be diving badly in anything, so the neuro today will be the deciding factor in how he stands to come out of this.”

“What’s instinct tellin’ ya?”

“Honestly, I don’t think the doctors here know how tough Don is. The fact that Mac was able to do as much as he did on scene helped an immense amount, and if there’s anything Don got from his father, it was stubbornness—he’s got a fighting streak in him like no tomorrow.”

“That he does,” Mac nodded. “The monitors are looking up, so now all we need is the doctor’s opinion.”

As if on cue, a lab-coated doctor stepped into the hall and walked up to them. “I’m Dr. Sorenson, the hospital neurologist,” he introduced himself. “I assume you’re here for Detective Flack’s results, yes?”

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	6. Chapter 6

White. Nothing but white. When Don Flack opened his eyes, that’s all he saw: white. _I’m dead_ , he thought. Funny, he wasn’t as disturbed as he probably should have been by that thought. And then the beeping of the monitors began to come into focus. _Didn’t think you’d hear that after you died_ , came the next idea; then his gaze turned over to the side, landing on Mac. _Why the hell am I in the damn hospital_? he wanted to ask, but somehow the words didn’t seem to want to come out. As he watched him, his eyes took in the bandage under his friend’s collar, and what hazy images he had from the day from hell rippled through his memory.

“You’re awake.”

From his place at Don’s side, Mac felt another aware presence and whipped his gaze away from the window to his friend, startled and immensely relieved to see the sapphire eyes open and focused.

Don offered a nod in response, opened his mouth to answer, and found that whatever he wanted to say wasn’t cooperating. Reaching over, Mac offered him the water glass, and he swallowed the cool liquid gratefully.

“Thanks,” he finally managed hoarsely, and Mac waved it off.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” he returned with a slight smile. “Good to see you awake—how you feeling?”

“Like I got trapped in a fuckin’ exploding building.”

Chuckling, the detective shook his head. “Nice to know it didn’t kill your sense of humor. But too bad it didn’t wash off your language.”

He got the beginnings of a low chuckle, and then Don groaned. “Ah, don’t make me laugh,” and his friend actually flinched.

“Sorry…”

Weakly, the homicide detective shook his head. “Damn, Mac, relax,” he managed to say. “Hurts like hell, but it ain’t your fault.” He drew in a couple of deep breaths, attempting to steady himself. “So what’re the doctors sayin’?”

“I think your doctor’s coming in to talk to you as soon as he—“

“I don’t needa hear it from a doctor,” Don interrupted him. “You’re here, and you obviously know whas going on, so talk.”

It was Mac’s turn to draw in a deep breath before he began speaking. “They say you’re going to be here another week or so; you’ll be off work for a few… months, at best.” The sound he got in response was somewhere between a groan and a growl, and Mac nodded. “I know… You’ve got a mild concussion—doctors were surprised, but pleased; you’re going to a have a pretty good scar on the left side of your stomach; they say it’s healing nicely, as far as they can tell right now. Your right wrist is about a couple hair’s breadths away from broken, but that’ll heal, and aside from a number of scratches and minor burns, the injury to your abdomen was the worst you sustained.” And there Mac ran out of breath.

“I got lucky, huh?”

“What?”

The bitterness in the younger man’s voice caught Mac’s attention, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was delirium or medication talking; he’d been amazingly lucid since he’d woken up—maybe more so than he was under normal circumstances—and maybe now that was wearing off?

“Stop looking at me like that.” The voice was harsh now, Don’s face twisted in an expression that could have been pain or anger. “I’ve been lucky too many times; luck means nothing. You think he hasn’t told me that?”

“Don, calm down.” Mac rose, placing his hands on the younger detective’s shoulders; his voice remained calm, though the command was unmistakable. “Calm down; you’re going to hurt yourself.” He knew exactly what had his friend getting so upset, but he knew equally well that discussing it _then_ was a particularly stupid way of going about it.

Don looked away, color flushing his cheeks, and muttered, “Sorry…”

Shaking his head, Mac sat back down slowly. “It’s okay.”

Neither of them pushed the subject, instead letting the silence spill through the room; somewhere in the back of Mac’s head, the notion that he should call the others ran through his mind, and he was on the verge of getting up to place the call when Don turned back to him.

“How’s everyone else?”

“They’re all doing okay—Lindsay’s got a bit of a concussion and a good-sized cut on her forehead, but she’s otherwise okay—just sore. No one else on the team got caught—couple of the officers outside were a little banged up, but nothing too serious.”

“Anyone stuck in the building?”

Here Mac hesitated; much as he wanted to avoid this one, lying was only going to hurt the both of them in the long run. “About a half-dozen were killed in the blast—they were on the other side of the building where we hadn’t gotten to. Some on the street were hit by debris, about fourteen or so hospitalized for longer than a regular exam.”

There was a flash of pain reflected in Don’s eyes, but he didn’t comment, merely nodding before he turned over to his boss. “And how’d you come out of it?”

With his usual dismissal, Mac waved the question off, gesturing at his neck. “Just this; nothing that won’t heal.”

Don sighed, but his response—if he had any to give—was cut off by the soft beep of the morphine pump as it gave him back over to sleep. A minute or two later, he turned heavy-lidded eyes to Mac. “I _am_ sorry,” he added, and the former Marine shook his head.

“Don’t be.” He gave his friend’s shoulder a squeeze, then slipped out of the room and pulled his phone from his pocket, his fingers dialing the familiar number.

“ _Bonasera_.”

“It’s me.”

“ _Hey. What’s up_?”

“Just letting you know—Don finally woke up.”

“ _Really? How’s he doing_?”

“Okay, all things considered. He’s out again—was up for about ten minutes, but he sounded good. Conscious, pretty aware of what happened.” He hesitated a moment, and she picked up on it immediately.

“ _So then what are you not telling me_?”

A sigh escaped him and he shook his head, despite knowing she had no way of seeing him. “Nothing. Let’s not; not now,” he answered, almost holding his breath during her brief silence.

“ _Okay. I’m coming down now. You calling the others, or me_?”

“I’ll call Danny and Sheldon; you call Lindsay?”

“ _Gotcha. See you in a few_.”

“Thanks, Stella.”

( _To Trigger the Bleeding_ )

“Hey.” Don’s voice was low and hoarse, but Danny smiled nonetheless.

“Hey yourself.” He paused a moment, and then a hint of his usual smirk appeared. “You look like crap, man.”

Fighting to keep a straight face, Don just rolled his eyes. “Thanks. Nice to know I was missed.”

With a chuckle, his friend offered him the water glass. “Dontcha know it. But really,” he added, setting the cup back on the table, “how’re ya doin’?”

Don shrugged as best he could from his rather compromised position. “Good as can be, I guess. Feel like shit, but that’s probly no surprise.”

A nod of sympathy. “You’re awake, though; doctors were hopin’, but…” Danny shrugged, glancing away for a moment, and his friend heard the silent allusion to his brother.

“I know. How’re you holdin’ up?”

“I’m not the one ‘n the hospital bed, Flackie,” came the response, with only a hint of Danny’s usual sarcastic sharpness.

“Doesn’t mean nothin’,” Don called his bluff. “And don’t call me that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the detective grumbled, but then his pager went off, and he offered up some rather colorful descriptions—his friend was awake for all of five minutes, and they _had_ to call him in.

“Go,” Don told him. “I’ll be here.” A wry half-smile played at his lips, not quite reaching his eyes.

With a nod, Danny stood, then hesitated slightly before laying a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Really, Don—‘s good t’ have ya back.”

Don returned his nod, a little more strength in his smile this time. “Thanks, Danny.”

( _To Trigger the Bleeding_ )

Much later that evening, Mac was back at Angel of Mercy, and he stepped out of the elevator in time to see none other than Donald Flack, Sr. disappearing into another.

 _Damn_! He cursed silently under his breath and started walking faster. With luck, he was overreacting; without it, as was more likely, he wasn’t reacting strongly enough. He sent a brief nod toward the receptionist’s desk, and then knocked lightly on his friend’s door before he stepped in.

“Don?”

The detective was lying on his uninjured left side, facing away from the door, and offered no response—his teeth were clenched too tightly to let him even consider speaking. From his vantage point near the door, Mac could see the tremors sweeping across his body, and he stepped further in, coming around to where Don could see him.

“Don,” he repeated again. “Are you all right?”

For a long moment, he still received no answer; finally, so quietly that Mac nearly missed it, Don whispered a pained, “No,” as a single tear slipped down his cheek.

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	7. Chapter 7

“Don, what happened?”

Now Mac was sufficiently worried, and his ire peaked; give him two minutes alone with Don’s father, and the man would never forget it—if he even managed to live that long. Cop legend he may have been, but stellar father figure he’d never quite captured.

“Leave it.”

“Not like this,” Mac insisted, pulling the chair over to the bedside without taking his eyes off his friend.

“Doesn’t matter.” Don’s sapphire eyes filled, but his voice remained carefully flat; with a shake of his head, the other detective sighed.

“Yes, it does. I don’t care if he’s God, Don—what did he say?”

Fighting to keep the anger out of his voice, Mac leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and mentally smacking himself over the head—this _had_ to be the retribution for his trying to avoid Stella’s questions all the time… _Patience, Mac_ , he reminded himself. _Wait_.

As expected, the silence worked its magic, and Don finally broke it. “You saw him.” It was a statement, not a question, and primarily addressed to the floor, but Mac nodded—once.

“I did.”

“You talk to ‘im?”

Another shake of his head. “No, which is why I’m asking,” he prodded gently.

Hesitantly—painfully—Don shifted onto his back and brought his right arm up behind his head, eyes fixed resolutely on the irritatingly white ceiling. “Said I deserved this,” came the quiet answer, the words laced with hurt, and confusion played across Mac’s face.

“You lost me, Don,” he admitted slowly.

“My mother.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes now alongside fury and pain, and this time he couldn’t keep the anger from his voice. “Damn it, Don—don’t tell me you believed him!”

“Don’t, Mac—believin’ ‘im isn’t th’ problem.” The thickening of his New York accent told how upset he was, rendering him nearly incoherent to anyone who didn’t call the city home.

“Then what?”

“Right; y’ never had anyone say somethin’ and have ‘t hurt, ‘cause you’re Mac Taylor.”

At the hurt that flashed through his friend’s eyes, he heaved a frustrated sigh; if he could have, he’d have thrown something at the wall, and if he hadn’t thought that yelling curses at the top of his lungs would bring the nurses running, he’d have done that, too, but at the moment he was just a little limited. So he settled for an incoherent growl.

“ ‘M sorry, Mac; I shouldna said that.”

With a shrug, Mac shook his head. “It’s okay.”

Turning his head, Don met his friend’s gaze, locking blue on blue. “He… he came in…” he began slowly, looking like he couldn’t quite figure out if he was really saying it aloud. “I was sleepin’, an’ I woke up t’ _that_ fuckin’ gorgeous sight. Almost thought he was gonna slap me ‘cross th’ room or somethin’. But he jus’ glared ‘t me… Said I deserved worse ‘n lyin’ here… said I was too lucky… Said I shoulda been dead… ‘cause maybe then it’d make up for killin’ my mother.”

The tears did spill over now, and he threw his arm across his eyes, biting down hard on his lip as Mac wound up staring at him in disbelief.

“He’s wrong, Don,” he snapped fiercely, “and you know it.”

“Yeah. Yeah… you’d think I’d be used t’ it by now, but somehow I keep thinkin’ that maybe he’ll figure out how t’ be a father one day. Stupid…”

“Normal,” Mac corrected. “Not stupid.”

“Yeah, sure… I jus’… Aw, fuck, I dunno, Mac…”

“Yeah… yeah, I know.” That got Don’s attention, enough that he pulled his arm away to shoot a puzzled look at Mac, who offered a halfhearted attempt at a lopsided grin. “Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse—having the wrong people blame you when you know you’ve done nothing to deserve it, or blaming yourself when everyone tells you there was nothing you could have done,” he answered by way of explanation to his friend’s unspoken question.

“Claire?”

A moment of hesitation; then a nod of, “Yeah.” _Among other things_ , he added silently.

“Y’ blamed yourself for that’n?”

Again, that same awkward smile played across the older man’s lips. “How could I not?”

“ ‘M I really supposed t’ answer that?”

A shrug. “Up to you, though I probably wouldn’t like whatever you decided on telling me, if anyone else’s reactions are any indication.”

That, at least, drew a slight smile out of Don. “Thanks,” he said after a minute. “Guess I jus’ gotta stop wishin’ that things coulda been different…”

“And that’s hard; part of you always wonders what you could have done differently, right?”

“Yeah… How the hell d’ you get past that?”

“I’ll let you know when I get there,” Mac informed him, reaching out to lay a hand on the younger detective’s shoulder. “But believe me: he’s wrong. You aren’t the one that made her pull that trigger, and I don’t care what your father says otherwise.”

Mac’s lopsided grin now found a twin with Don. “How d’ you know that?”

Stealing Stella’s words from the other night, he answered, “ ‘Cause I know _you_ , Don, and that isn’t who you are. Get some sleep; I’ll be here, and if your father comes in, I’ll… I don’t know—throw machinery at him.”

A low chuckle escaped the other man. “I knew there was a reason I thought I liked you. But really, man—thanks.”

“No problem. Now sleep, before the morphine pump has a fit.”

As Don drifted off, Mac leaned back in the decidedly uncomfortable hospital chair, wondering how on earth any father could be that cruel to his own son. Don’s mother had committed suicide when he was sixteen, suffering the effects of severe PTSD after a car accident that had left her facing charges of vehicular manslaughter and a concussion that erased any and all memory she’d had of the accident, rendering her essentially incapable of defense. Paired with a husband who loved his job more than his family and the sudden, unexpected orders to make funeral arrangements for her own late father, she’d sent Don to a friend’s house one night and taken her husband’s service weapon from the dresser while he was in the shower.

The following day, when Don had returned home, he’d found the scene with no preparation—no one had thought to call him and let him know that his mother was dead. That evening had been the first time his father had ever laid a hand on him with cruel intent: sweet he was certainly not—nor had he ever been—but until that night, he’d never physically abused his wife or son. That night, their relationship had been shattered, piece by agonizing, razor-sharp piece. Lacking a source to blame apart from himself, Donald Flack, Sr. had turned that blame to his son for Denise Flack’s suicide, and Don had subsequently spent less and less time at home.

Eventually, he’d graduated from the Academy and joined the force, but he rarely had contact with his father, and for every celebratory occasion that warranted the congratulations of friends and family, he received none from the latter. When, a few years prior to his joining Homicide, he’d been caught in a shooting in the Bronx that had landed him the hospital for weeks, he’d had the first exchange with his father in years that hadn’t dealt with the precinct. It had been a “civil” conversation consisting of no more than, “You’re lucky. And luck does not make a man—especially when he can’t pass it on to people who matter,” before Flack Senior had walked out on his son. Again.

Mac hadn’t found out until about two years ago, and, given how laconic Don was about his family, he probably wouldn’t have found out at all had he not walked into the evidence locker at the precinct early one morning to find both generations of Donald Flacks mentally murdering one another, following Gavin Moran’s discharge. The younger had looked like he was stuck somewhere between putting his fist through a wall and yelling until the elder no longer had his hearing, and Mac, effectively trapped between a rock and a hard place, had calmly stated needing the younger Flack’s presence at a crime scene before dragging him out.

He’d driven them both back to the lab and brought Don into his office, where thankfully the shades had stayed drawn since the evening before, and had spent three long hours listening to the younger detective haltingly explain the situation, ostensibly preferring that to a longer conversation with the department shrink.

Since then, it certainly hadn’t become a common topic of conversation between them, but on the rare occasions that it did come up, Mac could at least spare his friend the misery of explaining it again. And when times like this came around, he found himself fighting the urge to give Don’s father a piece of his mind—a large piece, at that—and maybe a good sampling of his fist while he was at it.

Sighing, he rubbed lightly at his temples. The last few months had been hell for all of them without question, and they’d all suffered through the events in their own way, spending entirely too much time as a team in the hospital, something that had become a bit of a department joke. No wonder the local hospitals hadn’t had to report crime as of late—they’d had a team of criminalists perpetually _living_ under their roofs.

At the soft knock on the door, he looked up, expecting one of the nurses, but found Stella standing there instead. Slowly, a smile turned up the corners of his mouth, and he gestured her in, gazes locking tired sapphire on pensive emerald.

“Come join the circus,” he quipped, and she laughed.

  
 _Feedback is always appreciated._


	8. Chapter 8

As he walked down the corridor the following evening, coming off a long shift and savoring the coffee the receptionist had allowed him, Mac cursed inwardly when he saw Don’s father approaching from the other end. He made a point of reaching the door first, just in time to touch the handle and turn to glare at the other man.

“I’m sorry sir; I can’t let you in here,” Mac informed Flack Sr. coolly, obstinately refusing to allow him the honor of titular address.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Does it really matter?” Miraculously enough, he managed to keep his tone between blasé and authoritative, meeting the icy blue gaze without flinching.

Sudden understanding and recognition appeared to dawn on the older man, and traces of bitterness and fury matched them ten for ten. “It does, _Detective_ Taylor,” he nearly spat, and there was no respect in the title whether or not he had recognized Mac’s earlier slight. “That’s my _son_.”

“By blood, perhaps,” Mac answered sharply.

“What the fuck d’you mean by that?!?”

The belligerent tone screamed “unpredictable,” but Mac Taylor had been playing with fire his entire life, and he wasn’t planning on getting burned now. “You think a DNA contribution is all it takes to be a father? That no matter what you do, you never have to earn that title?”

“What are you implying, detective?”

“That your answer should be yes,” Stella’s cold voice cut in before Mac could answer. She followed a moment later, stepping out from another corridor out of both men’s direct line of sight. “And you’ve asked him the same question three times.”

Mac froze—he _knew_ Stella didn’t have half a clue as to what they were talking about, but she was doing a damn good job of faking it. Don’s father clearly believed she at least knew _something_ , if his expression was any indication.

“ ‘S the whole damn department closin’ in on my family?” he snarled.

Her head came up sharply, emerald eyes glinting dangerously. “If two people make up the ‘whole damn department,’ then yes, and we wouldn’t need to if you weren’t such a public ass about it,” she answered shortly. “You’re a gem, aren’t you?”

“You let your women talk to you like that?”

That was for Mac, but again Stella spoke before he could, responding dryly, “You’re a feminist, too. And I don’t belong to him, either,” she added, pointing at Mac. “Now make it easier on yourself and us: leave.”

“I… am… his… father!” He was practically yelling, enunciating in the same manner people used with anyone who didn’t speak English, as though comprehension would increase with volume. “You can’t stop me!”

“I can, actually.”

If his glare was the bullet, his eyes were the trigger, but the ones that Flack Sr. shot Mac’s way didn’t even hit their target. “How d’you plan do that—you gonna arrest me?”

“I am listed as his next of kin, _sir_ ,” Mac snapped finally, “which you would have realized had you paid any attention to your son at all for the past fifteen years!”

“You’re a damn good liar, Detective Taylor, but I want the fuckin’ proof!”

“Which you aren’t going to get. That I cleared surgery three times in the past five years should be enough, and if I have power of attorney, I sure as hell have the power to deny you visitation. Now see yourself out, sir, before I have you escorted out.”

“You’ll hear from my lawyer, Taylor!”

“Saying what? That you don’t know how to raise your son—be a father? That you’re under arrest for delayed counts of child abuse? I’ll look forward to that call.”

The responding expression was an ugly sneer; the spoken words were uglier. “This from the man who couldn’t save his own wife?”

Flack’s father stepped forward, swinging a fist at Mac, and, in the split second his harsh words had gained him, almost broke the detective’s nose. Almost. Mac had the Marine’s advantage, and he used it, spinning the taller man around and trapping him from behind. When Stella spoke again, she was right in his face, and her voice was condemnation itself.

“When he lets go of you, you will walk out of here. You have no right to call yourself his father: I received more support in the orphanage, and it’s people like you who make me question if _parents_ like you are worth it.”

She stepped away, and a security guard appeared from somewhere—had Mac signaled him over somehow? She didn’t know, nor did she much care, and they both resolutely ignored the protests and cursing. Pressing charges wasn’t worth it, so throwing him out would have to suffice.

“Stella.”

She didn’t respond, icy gaze still fixed on the closed doors, arms wrapped around herself as though she were afraid she’d fall apart if she let go.

“Stella.” Louder this time, with a hand on her shoulder, and she turned, slowly.

“Yeah.”

“Come on.”

He led her down the hall to the conference room of sorts, meant for families to have someplace private to talk. Mercifully, it was empty, and he grabbed two cups of coffee and sat down across from her. For a moment, he just watched her: there was sadness, and anger—both of which seemed to be recently drawn to the surface from something she had carried for a long time. But he couldn’t ask; her walls were up, and he knew better than to push. In some sadistically selfish manner that he couldn’t even fully admit to himself, he was almost glad for her brief moment of vulnerability: it had been five long years, but no matter how far out of it he was, the other man’s words had stung with the accusation that no one else had ever voiced—the one that he’d hoped he could forget—and focusing on Stella gave him the chance to do something _else_. So he watched her, waiting for her to speak, worrying about whatever had triggered her outburst. When it became apparent that she wasn’t about to be the first to break the silence, he did it for her—he had to; the quiet left too much room to think.

“How long have you known?” he asked finally, unconsciously smoothing his voice into the tone he usually used with victims.

The question surprised her enough that she looked up from boiling the coffee with her gaze alone, and her eyes were dark—shadowed. “What?” He repeated his question, and she shook her head. “Known what—that Don’s father was an ass?”

“Um.. yeah…”

She shrugged, almost offhandedly. “Long time ago…”

Mac paused and, when she appeared lost in thought, prompted, “Since his mother?”

Now she just looked confused. “What about his mother?”

 _Shit_ , he thought to himself, but she shook her head before he could say anything. “Never mind. No—I met him when I was still at St. Basil’s. I was… I don’t know—fourteen? Fifteen? One of our girls was murdered, and he was the first responding officer. I didn’t realize he was Don’s father until years later, but he treated us like dirt. We were orphans, and therefore we weren’t his problem.

“He was the legend on the police force,” she laughed bitterly, “but after that, I could never respect him, even after I started working at the precinct. He never made the connection, but given how much attention he paid us, I’m not surprised.”

She cast a sharp look at him then. “I don’t know why _you_ were upset with him, aside from what you said, and I didn’t know you were Don’s next of kin until five minutes ago, but I can’t imagine he was much of a warm, loving father.”

With a heavy sigh and a shake of his head, Mac tipped his gaze to the ceiling and rubbed his neck. “I’m sorry, Stella—I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine, Mac. I never really mentioned it; I wouldn’t expect you to know.”

“Well, you weren’t too far off the mark, anyway.”

A sad smile played at her lips. “I rarely am, you know. Intuition and all that.”

“Yeah.” He blew out a breath. “You going to be all right?”

“I will be. You?”

“Same. I’m sorry, Stel—I… I’d explain, but… Don…”

She held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t, Mac. It’s fine. What’s there is more than sufficient, and the man’s ass enough in my book.”

Nodding slowly, he sighed again and stood. “I’ll be back—I’m going to go check on Don.” He touched her shoulder gently. “Thanks.”

“Mac.” Her voice stopped him with his hand on the doorknob, and he turned back to face her.

“Yeah, Stel?”

Turning in her chair, she faced him squarely. “You know he was wrong, don’t you?”

It didn’t take a genius to understand her question, but he couldn’t answer. Instead, he made the mistake of meeting her eyes and found himself searching her piercing emerald gaze for answers no one on the planet could ever know.

“Mac?” His name was a soft question this time, the worry more apparent, and he nodded slowly—too slowly, but it was acknowledgment nonetheless.

“I do. I have to.” The smile was no less true, but it was honest, and she let it go with a nod of her own. Because that was the uneven turntable that was their relationship: it changed facets of strength and need in a moment too quick for any human perception to catch.

Outside, he turned once to look back through the window, where Stella had her elbows braced on the table and her head in her hands, and he ended up wishing—not for the first time—that he could simply throw Don’s father off the roof of the hospital. Since that wasn’t really a viable option—the staff might protest the disruption—he forced himself to continue in to Don’s room.

“Thanks.”

It was the first word that greeted him, and he looked up in surprise. “For what?”

There was a vague gesture made in the general direction of the door. “Keepin’ ‘im out…”

“Ah.” Mac moved closer, sinking into the chair by Don’s bed. “You’re welcome, I think. I am sorry, though—I know you didn’t want to tell him—“

“ ‘S’okay, Mac. Guess it’s time he knew. He was never gonna find out on his own, so…”

“It should have been—no; it was yours to tell him. I didn’t mean to, but—“

“Mac.” Don cut him off again, more forcefully this time. “I said it’s fine. Even if you never let ‘im in t’ see me, I’ll still hear about it somehow once I’m out.” A mirthless laugh escaped him. “It’s like gettin’ outta jail: even if you’re out, y’ know y’ still gotta face the gang whose members y’ murdered.”

The thickening of his accent was unmistakable, and Mac offered, “I’ll have my people stake out your apartment and ambush him if he shows up,” only half-joking; his friend grinned.

“Y’ would, too.”

Mac smiled, but didn’t deny it. “Seriously, Don: are you worried about him?”

A half-amused smile crossed Don’s face. “You tryin’ to do a better job ‘n he did?”

“Not particularly, though I really don’t want to be the one who has to clean up your crime scene.”

“Nice t’ know y’ gimme that much credit,” the younger man answered. “And ‘s fine, Mac. I’ve dealt with ‘im all my life; he hasn’t killed me yet.”

“Yet?”

“Yeah. Yet.”

“You’re getting smarter,” Stella commented from the doorway. “Can I come in?”

Don just quirked an eyebrow at her. “You need to ask?”

Shrugging, she sat down on his other side, across from Mac, but when she winced as she sat down, the homicide detective gave her a funny look.

“You’d be sore if you hit a second-floor fire escape that wasn’t there, too,” she informed him pertly. “You should see the other guy.”

An outright laugh escaped Mac, and Don turned his attention over that way. “Old warehouse,” he explained. “Perp ran in, Stella followed, and the guy went out to the fire escape, but the bolts came away from the wall. Stella stepped on just as it swung away, and they both went off—she landed on top of him.”

Don snorted, flinched, grabbed his side, and groaned. “Don’ suppose you got that on tape, didya?” he asked with a grin once he could breathe properly again.

Stella, too tired to come up with a more intelligent response, merely stuck her tongue out at him. “Shut up. Right now, I’m bigger than you.”

Shaking his head, he stayed silent, smart enough not to give a response to that, and the conversation drifted for a while as Mac and Stella brought Don up to speed on some of the cases they’d come across. In the midst of a discussion on a robbery in Queens, Danny arrived, followed shortly by Sheldon, and Lindsay, who had apparently bribed the nurses to ignore the fact that there were three too many people in one room.

As Danny started to argue with Don about the Mets and Lindsay joined in, they almost overrode the beeping of the monitors, and it was the closest thing to normal they’d had in a long time. Drifting, Mac flashed back to what he’d told Stella a few nights ago— _“No matter what triggers the bleeding, there’s always something that can stop it.”_ They’d all been wounded over these last couple of months, and still, for most of them, the bleeding hadn’t yet stopped. _But we’ll heal_ , he told himself, rubbing the finger that had borne his wedding band for twenty-five years, up until the previous April. _Slowly_ , painfully, but we’ll heal.

He looked up to find Stella watching him, still seated opposite him, and he smiled, because tonight, even though they weren’t all whole, the gaps were closing. Yes—they’d heal. And damn the next person who tried to reopen any one of their wounds again.

  
 _Finis._

 

Feedback is always appreciated. __


End file.
